THE NENETS

The self-designation is Nenets (n'enyts, pl. n'enytsja), meaning 'man';
the native term for the language is n'enytsia vada. The name hasaba, 'man',
is less common and has restricted usage. Etymologically, Nenets derives
from the same origin as Nganasan and Enets. The primal meaning of the root
nenay is 'true, real, genuine', and this is often used in conjunction with
the self-designation n'enay nenyts -- 'Nenets, i.e. a genuine man' (cf.
eney enet -- 'Enets' and ngano nganasan -- 'Nganasan'). The term originally
used by the Northern Nenets was applied to the whole people in the 1920s.

The older and more widespread name for the Nenets is Yurak-Samoyeds, or
simply Yuraks. This comes from a Zyryan Komi word yaran denoting the Samoyeds,
which in its turn is probably derived from the Yamal Peninsula tundra family
name Yar. Through the Russian language the term Yurak-Samoyeds has been
established in other languages and it is in common use up to the present
day outside the Soviet Union. The common term Samoyed probably derives
from the Selkup language where samatu ~ somatu denoted the Enets. This
probably has its origins with the Enets Madu-tribe, who were called samatu
or somaut by their neighbours.

Monk Nestor of Kiev in his chronicle A Tale of the Times Past refers to
the Samoyeds as neighbours and allies of the Ugrians. In 1787 the tribe
name Hasaba was used by the missionary J. S. Vater in his fable Vada Hasovo
(The Language of the Nenets).

Habitat. The Nenets live in the polar regions of northeastern Europe and
northwestern Siberia from the Kanin Peninsula on the White Sea to the Yenisey
delta, occupying the central place among the Samoyed territories. They
also inhabit the Arctic Ocean islands and the Kola Peninsula. Administratively,
their habitat is divided between the Nenets Autonomous District of the
Arkhangelsk Region and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District of the Tyumen
Region. Combined, this covers a vast territory of about 1 million square
kilometres. A part of the Nenets also inhabits the Taymyr, or Dolgan-Nenets
Autonomous District belonging to the District of Krasnoyarsk. The native
land of the Nenets is the tundra and forest tundra, a country of permafrost,
numerous rivers and vast marshy areas. Along the banks of the River Ob
the Nenets settlements reach the dense forest area of the Siberian taiga.

Population. The Nenets are the most numerous of the Samoyed peoples -- this
is clearly shown by the census results:

native speakers

1897

9,427 (an incomplete census)

1926

17,560

1959

23,007

84.7 %

1970

28,705

83.4 %

1979

29,894

80.4 %

1989

34,665

77.1 %

As the total population of the Samoyeds is about 40,000, the Nenets, as
can be seen, form a substantial part. While the population shows a tendency
towards increase, the data shows a decline in native language speakers.
Thus the Nenets are not in danger of physical extinction but cultural.
The percentage of Nenets within the total populations of their native regions
is also decreasing. For example, the total population of the Yamal-Nenets
Autonomous District has increased six-fold in only 19 years, from 80,000
in 1970 to 486,000 in 1989.

Anthropologically, the Nenets are representatives of the Uralic race with
stronger than average Mongoloid characteristics. They are commonly of short
stature (the average male height is 158 cm) and a stocky build. The face
is broad and flat, with a short and somewhat protruding nose. While hair
is straight and thick, beard growth is poor. Eyelids commonly exhibit epicanthic
folds. Due to dark pigmentation, hair and eyes are black or brown and the
skin is swarthy. In appearance the Nenets resemble most the Ostyaks, displaying,
however, more Mongoloid characteristics. The Nenets of the Arkhangelsk
region exhibit a somewhat stronger European strain.

The language of the Nenets belongs to the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic
languages, comprising together with the Enets and Nganasan languages its
Northern Group. Due to a rather low density of population spread over a
vast territory the language is rich in dialects. An overwhelming majority
(about 95 %) speak the Tundra Dialect that divides into 11 local vernaculars
(Western, Central, and Eastern). The most prominent among these is the
Bolshaya Zemlya local vernacular, which served as a basis for the Nenets
written language. The Forest or Taiga Dialect divides into Western and
Eastern vernaculars. The dialectal differences are actually quite minor
and they mostly occur on a phonetic level; thus a Kanin and a Taymyr Nenets
would have no difficulty in understanding each other's speech. The structure
and basic vocabulary of the language are descended from the common Samoyedic
foundation. Nenets is particularly rich in ways of describing nature (especially
the character and properties of snow) and weather conditions. It also abounds
in terms connected with reindeer-breeding, hunting and fishing.

The Nenets have well-established linguistic contacts mainly with the other
Samoyedic languages, however, there have also been influences from the
Turkic, Ob-Ugric, Komi and Russian languages. Satisfactorily, the reverse
is also true and the Nenets language has influenced other languages too,
notably in the terminology of reindeer-breeding and nomadic life. As the
territorially widespread tongue of the most numerous Samoyedic people,
Nenets has served as a kind of lingua franca, and it is a common or secondary
language for the peoples of the Polar-Ural region.

During the 1930s there was a surge in contacts with Russian. Abounding
Sovietisms began to reflect new phenomena and notions. Lexical borrowing
became commonplace in the course of time. Knowledge and use of Russian
grew constantly, particularly during the period of intense russification
in the 1970s. Today, all the western Nenets are bilingual, only east of
the Ural mountains is an equal knowledge of Russian not yet common. Russian
has gained a reputation as a medium for culture and communication, and
younger generations are at present discarding the language of their fathers
in favour of it.

History. During the first centuries of the first millenium AD. the Northern
Group of Samoyeds splintered from the Southern and moved to the polar regions
both east and west of the Ural mountains. It is probable that they assimilated
a native Arctic people who formerly inhabited the region. In the following
centuries the tribes of the Northern Group (among whom were the ancestors
of the modern Nenets) underwent a process of change. In northeastern Europe
the Nenets were neighbours to the Ugrians, while their journeys sometimes
reached the banks of Lake Äänisjärvi and the domain of the Veps. From the
13th to the 15th century the Nenets paid tribute to Novgorod, and from
the 14th to the 16th century also to the Tatars. By the end of the 16th
century, however, the Russians had destroyed the Khanate of Siberia and
were stabilizing their power in Western Siberia. The building of the Krasnoyarsk
fortress (1628) marks the assemblage of all the Samoyedic peoples under
Russian rule.

To the dismay of the Russian conquerors there were constant uprisings,
in which the Nenets also participated. Caravans of tax collectors were
raided and Russian strongholds attacked. In a period of one hundred years
the Pustozersk stronghold in northeastern Europe suffered six major attacks,
the last of which took place in 1746. From the Russians the Samoyeds learned
the use of firearms.

Christianity made its appearance among the Nenets in the 18th century.
Large-scale Russian-Orthodox baptism began after 1824 when a mission specifically
for spreading Christianity among the Samoyeds, was founded in the Arkhangelsk
Province. In connexion with this, there were attempts to educate Nenets
youth at the Bolshaya Zemlya, Kanin and Timan parochial schools. In 1846,
a clergyman named Popov established a school in Obdorsk (now Salekhard)
where some Samoyeds studied alongside Russians. No missionaries, however,
came of the Nenets themselves and literacy gained no ground.

During the 19th century the Nenets, up until this time living only from
the land, became increasingly dependent on merchants and colonial traders.
With impunity these tradesmen extorted enormous prices for essential goods
like tea, sugar, flour, tobacco and gunpowder. Befuddled by liquor, the
Nenets easily ran up debts with the tradesmen -- a position not easy to
escape from. It was not uncommon that a Nenets would be paying furs to
clear debts of his father, or even grandfather. In the 1870s Russia used
the Nenets to secure her own political interests. A part of the Nenets
were resettled to Novaya Zemlya to keep the Norwegians out of the polar
regions. At that time the settlements on the Kola Peninsula were also reinforced
with subjects of the Russian Empire.

Since ancient times the migratory cycle of the Nenets has been tied to
that of the reindeer (from the coastal regions to the forests in autumn,
and back in spring). They have led the lives of hunters and fishermen and
fully adapted themselves to existence in the tundra. Their subsequent expertise
in reindeer-breeding has been of value to several other peoples. This experience
born of centuries of living with the land did not yield easily to the destructive
efforts of the Soviet administration. The first collective farms on Nenets
territory were set up in 1929. Collectivization was, however, completed
only 20 years later by means of ideological brainwashing (militant atheism,
political propaganda) and widespread repression. The reindeer-breeders
even rose up in armed struggle against collectivization, and attacked the
town of Vorkuta. The army used aircraft to subdue the Nenets as if they
were a pack of wolves.

The Russians achieved a breakthrough in the 1950s when they began to merge
small collective farms. This meant deportations for the Nenets and forced
transition from a nomadic to a settled mode of life. The recalcitrance
of the Nenets was overcome by a relatively simple method: Nenets women,
children and elderly people who were not directly employed in reindeer
breeding, were forcibly settled into villages. In time the men were compelled
to follow their families.

A system of state-controlled sustenance for northern peoples was established
by a government decree in 1957. A Nenets (or a Lapp, or an Evenk) was considered
to be in state custody from birth to the day he completed his education.
This meant growing up in a boarding school, away from one's home and ethnic
background. State-controlled sustenance (i.e. free catering, clothing,
schoolbooks and transport) has ruined the sense of duty and responsibility
as well as all initiative in the younger generation. A youth who has left
school is as helpless as a hothouse plant on permafrost.

A lot of damage has been caused by a Soviet levelling system which deliberately
ignores specific needs, local peculiarities and national characteristics.
The Nenets also study at schools run in accordance with a Russian standard
syllabus; apartment blocks are built according to a standard; the village
hall director works according to a standard prescription. Even food rations
(coupons for buying tea, sugar, flour, butter, tobacco, etc.) were the
same all over the U.S.S.R.

Since the 1950s chemical and oil industries have exerted their influence
on the life of the Nenets -- in the Pechora region and in northwestern Siberia
big companies like Gazprom, Norilsknikel and others are a dominant influence.
Industry is the prime and privileged concern and their own administrative
units have proved incapable of protecting the rights of the Nenets. The
industrial boom has brought along a drastic increase in population and
pollution of the natural habitat. On the Taymyr peninsula, for example,
the proportion of recent settlers to native-born residents was six to one
(excepting the 174,000 inhabitants of the city of Norilsk and the prison
camps). The pollution caused by Norilsknikel alone has destroyed 4.8 million
hectares of pasture and 0.5 million hectares of forest. According to technocratic
reckoning, the price of one hectare of tundra land is 59 kopecks, although
economists have arrived at a figure of 20,000 roubles. The environment
suffers from acid rains; heavy metals accumulate in the moss and through
reindeer killed for meat, enter into the human diet. Nuclear tests on Novaya
Zemlya are another grave danger to the health and existence of the people
of the area.

Industrial cultivation has caused displacement of the Nenets language --
the unfavourable demographic situation gives rise to unfavourable linguistic
tendencies -- and culture. In addition it has led to extraordinarily high
death and suicide rates. The life-expectancy of Nenets is 45 to 50 years.
Only 41 % of the Nenets have found paid employment, mostly as unskilled
labour. The wages of the natives are considerably lower than those of the
recent settlers and the "glass ruble", that is, a bottle of strong alcohol,
functions as the hard currency in the tundra.

Writing. For centuries the Nenets, as most northern peoples, have used
pictographic writing. Special family signs called tamga were used to mark
property. Attempts to establish a written language were made by the Orthodox
missionaries. In the 1830s archimandrite Venyamin Smirnov published some
religious texts. Spelling books were also introduced (e.g. by J. Sibirtsev,
1895), however, they had little lasting success. In 1932 the Nenets literary
language was established on the basis of the Bolshaya Zemlya vernacular
(one of the Central vernaculars), using the Latin alphabet. A spelling
book Jadei vada ('New World'), a reader, an arithmetic book and school
glossaries were published, and a number of political writings and sketches
of everyday life translated from Russian. In 1937 a transition to the Russian
alphabet was made and since then there has also been partial compliance
with Russian orthography.

Until recently the publishing output has consisted mainly of new schoolbooks
(textbooks for primary schools, etc.) as well as some fiction and stories
of everyday life. The best known writers are Tyko Vylka (1886--1960), Ivan
Istomin (b. 1917) Leonid Lepstui (b. 1932), and Vassili Ledkov (b. 1933).
The only newspaper in Nenets, Nyaryana Ngyrm ('The Red North'), is published
in Salekhard, the capital of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Region. Unfortunately,
the quantity of literature published in Nenets is minimal and thus alongside
the vast body of Russian work published, its influence is zero.

Research. The kinship between the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages was
first mentioned by Ph. J. von Strahlenberg (1730). Word lists and comments
were to be found as early as in the comparative dictionary Linguarum totius
orbis vocabularia comparativa by P. S. Pallas. Linguistic material has been
collected by D. G. Messerschmidt, J. von Klaproth, A. G. Schrenk and others.
The missionary J. S. Vater attempted in 1767 to write an outline grammar
of the Nenets language on the ground of one legend but the material proved
insufficient for the task. The foundation for systematic research was laid
by M. A. Castrén who published the first grammar of the Samoyedic languages
(Grammatik der samojedischen Sprachen, 1854) followed by a glossary (Wörterverzeichnis
aus den samojedischen Sprachen, 1855). After Castrén's death in 1852 there
was a lengthy break until 1912 when T. Lehtisalo commenced his study of
the Nenets language.

In the Soviet Union the year 1925 marked the starting-point for Samoyedic
studies. In 1930 an Association for Academic Research was founded at the
Institute of Northern Peoples in Leningrad, specializing in the minor ethnic
groups of the Arctic regions and Siberia. The Nenets literary language
was established in 1932 and a grammatical survey was written by G. Prokofiev
in 1937. An outline grammar by N. Tereshchenko (1966) has remained to date
the most comprehensive of its kind. A collection of folklore has been published
by T. Lehtisalo (1947) and an ethnological survey by L. Homich (1966). The
first bilingual dictionary was compiled by A. Pórerka and N. Tereshchenko
and published in 1948. The bulky Yurak-Samojedisches Wörterbuch by T. Lehtisalo
came out in 1956.